Date for your diary; the HIA International Conference is in Geneva, Switzerland and will take place between the 2-4 October 2013.
The website is at:
www.hianet2013.net [English]
or
www.eis2013.net [French]
Monday, 18 March 2013
Friday, 15 March 2013
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Two HIA job opportunities in San Francisco
Thanks to Tim Choi for letting us know about this.
The Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability is seeking a full-time Data Analyst and a Communications Specialist, who will be hired through the San Francisco Public Health Foundation, to support the San Francisco Department of Public Health's health impact assessment (HIA) work for a five month period.More details here
The Data Analyst will support data collection, analysis and visualization used in HIA to inform public policy on housing and neighborhood conditions that impact health.
The Communications Specialist will develop impactful "storytelling" and visualizations that can be used to support future HIA work and policy recommendations on healthy housing and/or other key healthy community design initiatives.
Both positions have an anticipated start date of April 1, 2013.
Tuesday, 12 March 2013
Atherosclerosis in Ancient Mummies Revisited
Many of you are already aware of the recent study that examined atherosclerosis in 137 ancient mummies from four different cultures (1). Investigators used computed tomography (CT; a form of X-ray) to examine artery calcification in mummies from ancient Egypt, Peru, Puebloans, and arctic Unangan hunter-gatherers. Artery calcification is the accumulation of calcium in the vessel wall, and it is a marker of severe atherosclerosis. Where there is calcification, the artery wall is thickened and extensively damaged. Not surprisingly, this is a risk factor for heart attack. Pockets of calcification are typical as people age.
I'm not going to re-hash the paper in detail because that has been done elsewhere. However, I do want to make a few key points about the study and its interpretation. First, all groups had atherosclerosis to a similar degree, and it increased with advancing age. This suggests that atherosclerosis may be part of the human condition, and not a modern disease. Although it's interesting to have this confirmed in ancient mummies, we already knew this from cardiac autopsy data in a variety of non-industrial cultures (2, 3, 4, 5).
Read more »
Request for Proposals: Greenways and Green Infrastructure Health Impact Assessment
Shelby County Government (Tennessee) is seeking proposals from interested and qualified consultants or consultant teams to conduct an assessment of the impact on public health of greenways, green infrastructure, and other green spaces, including how existing and planned greenways and trails in the study area impact public health. The consultant or consultant team will develop an assessment tool that can be used by the community to consider the health impacts of greenways, green infrastructure, and green spaces as part of the Mid-South Regional Greenprint and Sustainability Plan process and beyond.
Bids will be accepted through March 28, 2013 at 4:00 p.m. Central Standard Time
For more information, please visit shelbycountytn.gov/bids.aspx?bidID=534 to download the full RFP and bidding instructions.
Monday, 11 March 2013
Quick Morning Oatmeal
Busy mornings are typical in most families and ours is no exception. I'm a coffee-first-thing-in-the-morning kind of gal, but I also never go without breakfast. A super quick and healthy breakfast is oatmeal. Some mornings go so fast, I put my oatmeal in a cup and eat it in the car- shhhh!
My oatmeal is simple, just oats, sliced almonds, raisins, cinnamon, and topped with a little skim milk.
I toast the almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat for a few minutes to make them more flavorful and crunchy. Watch them closely though- they can burn easily.
Then I combine all the ingredients in a large canister and give it a good shake.
I keep a plastic scoop in the canister for easy scooping.
And the whole mixture sits on the counter next to my coffee.
You can also portion the dry oatmeal mix into 5 small plastic baggies and take them to work to eat in the office in the morning if you don't want to eat in the car!
I add water, microwave for one minute, then add a little milk.
What's your quick go-to breakfast? I also like toast and natural peanut butter.
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Sunday, 10 March 2013
Health equity impact assessment - new journal article
New journal article from Sue Povall, Fiona Haigh, Debbie Abrahams and Alex Scott-Samuel at IMPACT.
Abstract
The World Health Organization's Commission on Social Determinants of Health has called for ‘health equity impact assessments' of all economic agreements, market regulation and public policies. We carried out an international study to clarify if existing health impact assessment (HIA) methods are adequate for the task of global health equity assessments. We triangulated data from a scoping review of the international literature, in-depth interviews with health equity and HIA experts and an international stakeholder workshop. We found that equity is not addressed adequately in HIAs for a variety of reasons, including inadequate guidance, absence of definitions, poor data and evidence, perceived lack of methods and tools and practitioner unwillingness or inability to address values like fairness and social justice. Current methods can address immediate, ‘downstream’ factors, but not the root causes of inequity. Extending HIAs to cover macro policy and global equity issues will require new tools to address macroeconomic policies, historical roots of inequities and upstream causes like power imbalances. More sensitive, participatory methods are also required. There is, however, no need for the development of a completely new methodology.
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